Six top-flight matches occurred on Wednesday night, including a chaotic south coast thriller, and some more defensive success to please Oliver Glasner.
- READ MORE: FPL notes – Rice hurt, Timber denied + did Anderson get DefCon?
- READ MORE: Wednesday’s FPL goals, assists, bonus + ‘DefCon’ points
Here are a few Fantasy Premier League (FPL) talking points from Brighton and Hove Albion v Aston Villa and Burnley v Crystal Palace.
BRACES FOR VAN HECKE…
When the decision was made to rotate Danny Welbeck (£6.6m) onto Brighton’s bench, another source of goals needed to emerge. Instead of Yankuba Minteh (£6.3m) or Stefanos Tzimas (£5.3m) – the latter injured early on – up stepped bargain centre-back Jan Paul van Hecke (£4.4m).
“It didn’t look great. When you have to be subbed off because of a knee injury it’s not the best thing.” – Fabian Hurzeler on Stefanos Tzimas’ injury
He headed in the opener from a controversially given corner, and the Seagulls soon reached 2-0 to seemingly extend their unbeaten home record. Jack Hinshelwood (£5.1m) replaced Tzimas in the 24th minute and quickly forced Pau Torres (£4.3m) into an own goal.
Once things had swung the other way, it was Hinshelwood who provided van Hecke’s impressive edge-of-the-box strike at the end. Not that this was enough to gain the Dutchman any bonus points.
Still, he’s played every league minute and is up to three goals, boasts a trio of clean sheets in five matches, and is about to face West Ham United (twice), Burnley and Sunderland during the next six.
…AND WATKINS
Having begun the campaign in over 2.6 million squads, Ollie Watkins (£8.5m) has been having an awful season. One goal and no assists in his initial 13 appearances, despite playing up front for a team that now sits third in the league table.
No FPL player has dropped more from his original price.
Benched at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers, Watkins started over Donyell Malen (£5.1m) here and responded brilliantly.
Firstly, he scrambled home from close range to pull a goal back, one of two Evann Guessand (£6.2m) assists. Then, completing an end-to-end sequence of play, Morgan Rogers‘ (£6.9m) superb pass put Watkins clean through to rifle home.
In the second half, Amadou Onana (£4.8m) completed the comeback by heading in Matty Cash‘s (£4.7m) corner, made better when Malen tapped in a fourth.
Winless by the end of Gameweek 5, that’s now eight victories from nine for Villa. They next get to host Arsenal in Gameweek 15’s tasty lunchtime opener.
IS MARTINEZ INJURED?
Though they might have to do it without goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez (£5.1m).
Shortly after the teamsheets revealed benchings for Youri Tielemans (£5.9m) and Lucas Digne (£4.5m), the World Cup winner hurt his back in the warmup.
“He was feeling pain in his back. He couldn’t even do a warm-up normally.” – Unai Emery on Emiliano Martinez
Marco Bizot (£4.3m) therefore entered proceedings, but things began badly as his misjudgement led to van Hecke’s first goal.
Observers might have dismissed the defender’s 83rd-minute strike as a late consolation, but there was still time for Bizot to be called into action. A great reaction save denied Welbeck at the death, as the veteran forward churned out three shots in his half-hour cameo.
MUNOZ WILL NOT STOP
Joining van Hecke and two other defenders on three goals is Crystal Palace’s Daniel Munoz (£6.0m). In consecutive away games, the flying wing-back has combined one with a clean sheet to deliver 14 points.
In fact, he’s blanked only twice in the last eight occasions, now sitting as FPL’s highest-scoring defender. Teammate Marc Guehi (£5.1m) is just behind him in second, thanks to his own 14-point haul at Turf Moor.
They combined for the sole goal, as Guehi’s floated diagonal cross from a central position met Munoz’s head. A routine they practice in training.
Above: Marc Guehi’s assist for Daniel Munoz, shown by StatsBomb
“It was almost the same goal against Newcastle last season. We scored a similar goal against [Dynamo] Kyiv in the Conference League – it’s one of our attacking patterns. Last time we trained it, it was in pre-season, but still the players can deliver, and it helped us.” – Oliver Glasner
Meanwhile, Palace are joint-second among all teams for big chances (41). Later on, Munoz’s pull-back provided a huge opportunity for Jean-Philippe Mateta (£8.1m), but the forward missed his 13th one. Only Erling Haaland (£14.9m) has spurned more.
He twice tested Martin Dubravka (£4.0m) before a 64th-minute substitution. Had he not scored a weekend goal versus Manchester United, FPL managers would probably be preparing to sell Mateta out of rage.
DEFCON + BONUSES
As for Palace’s backline, only Arsenal beat their seven clean sheets. This latest one came in spite of Burnley outdoing them for shots (11 v 3).
A powerful Jacob Bruun Larsen (£5.3m) shot was tipped onto the bar by Dean Henderson (£5.0m), before Chris Richards (£4.6m) had to clear a stoppage-time header off the line.
“My hand was killing after it! I knew I got the touch – [I looked at the screen as] I just wanted to see what it looked like.” – Dean Henderson, speaking to Sky Sports
In the end, each of the Eagles’ three centre-backs received defensive contribution (DefCon) points, and bonuses belonged to Guehi, Munoz and Richards.
These nine points are a particular relief to Richards’ owners, as his anticipated rotation never happened. All Glasner changed from Sunday was replacing the injured Ismaila Sarr (£6.6m) with Jefferson Lerma (£4.9m).
